


Lucky Day

by Talullah



Category: Disney's Paperman (Video Short)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-21
Updated: 2014-12-21
Packaged: 2018-03-02 16:22:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,551
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2818547
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Talullah/pseuds/Talullah
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Meg has news to tell to her best friend.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lucky Day

**Author's Note:**

  * For [magdarko](https://archiveofourown.org/users/magdarko/gifts).



> Beta by Aglarien - many thanks!
> 
> Written for magdarko, for Yuletide Treasure 2014.
> 
>  
> 
> [Disclaimer/Blanket Statement](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Talullah/profile)

“Ooohhhh!!! Did you get it? Did you get it?” Susie bounced up and down at the door, keeping Meg from getting into the apartment. “I can see that you got it, your grin is a dead giveaway! Did you start already? Was that why you came home so late?”

Meg laughed at Susie’s stream of questions as she slipped by her and went in. Susie followed her in, relentlessly spewing more questions.

“Were they nice? How much are they going to pay you? Wait, wait, I’ll get ‘The Secret Stash’ and we’ll celebrate!”

“Susie!” Meg cried, bursting into laughter. “You’ll give yourself a heart-attack, girl! Come here.” She pulled Susie by the hand before she disappeared behind the aisle that separated their tiny kitchenette from the rest of their tiny apartment. She looked straight into Susie’s eyes, forcing a serious face until Susie’s expression mirrored hers.

“I got it!” Meg exclaimed, laughing again.

“Oh, you evil – you almost had me fooled, there! Now spill the beans, I want to know all about it.”

Meg’s grin turned into a deviously sweet smile.

“I’ll tell you. But something else happened. Something really amazing.”

“More amazing than landing a job, now that the boys are all back from the war?” Susie asked. “Oh, I didn’t mean it like that,” she immediately amended. “Of course I’m so happy that the war is over and no one will ever be blown up again.”

For a moment they both were quiet, thinking of Jake, Meg’s cousin, and Susie’s fiancé. Meg squeezed Susie’s hands and lowered her head, thinking how callous it would be to tell her the news now.

“I’ll start Monday. The pay will be enough to stop leaching Daddy for rent money. Maybe he’ll stop complaining that we came here.”

Both girls giggled. Meg’s father had moved their sparse belongings all the way from Winterville, Maine, to the Great Babylon, as he called it. Meg had always dreamt of living in the big city and when Susie, her best friend forever, who was now all alone in the world had decided to test her luck, she just couldn’t let her go by herself.

Her dad had grumbled all the way as he drove them down, then he had bargained his way around town until he got them a tiny but clean and affordable apartment and left them all set up. Then he had driven away, not without a great big lecture on the dangers of the big city and an open invitation for the girls to return to the farm whenever they were ready. In the old man’s view, a week should be enough to do them in, but Susie had gotten a job at a fashion magazine, running errands for the editor, and she couldn’t be happier. Meg was happy too, to see her friend finally smile. 

However, her own luck had not been so great. She looked at the pile of newspapers, folded in the corner, full of red circles with a red cross on top and thought of how her savings had dwindled to almost nothing. She hated the thought of asking her father for more money. He would help her as much as he could, but it was unfair and she hated being a burden. At the farm, she may have dreamed of spreading her wings, but she had always carried her weight – the job had come just in time.

“I was so lucky, Susie,” she said as they hugged. “So, so lucky.”

“I’m so happy for you. But what was that other thing?” Susie asked.

“Ooh,” Meg sighed and grinned and sighed again. “Remember my telling you about a boy who’s always at the station for the 8:30 train and never looks up from his papers?”

“Yeesss,” Susie drawled, her grin matching Meg’s. “Did you talk to him, finally?”

“Well, that would be unladylike, now wouldn’t it?” Both giggled. “But he finally looked at me today.”

“Ooh!! Did he? What did he say?”

“He didn’t say anything.”

“What did _you_ say?” Susie positively bounced on the moribund 20th hand sofa.

“Well, nothing. A sheet of his papers flew into my face, he took it back, and it was smeared with that lucky lipstick you gave me. We smiled, and then I had to get into my train.”

“Ooh, you could have caught the next one!”

“No, I would have been late for the interview. But anyway-”

“He went into the train after you!”

Meg laughed. “No, not at all, silly. But he stood there looking at me until my train left the station.”

“Awww, you kill me, Meg. Darling, you wasted-”

“No wait,” Meg said, laughing. “Something incredible happened later and this was why I got home so late.”

“What was it? I swear, you should be writing movie scripts for Mr. Hitchcock!”

“Well, I was just looking at some flowers, not that we can afford them right now, when a paper airplane landed right in the roses, and it had the lipstick mark. Then, you won’t believe this, it started flying again on its own and I followed it to the train station and jumped in a car, and it just kept flying, as if it was _leading_ me, like when we were little and we’d go treasure hunting with Jake and he’d leave clues and tease us with bird calls and ghost imitations.” They both smiled.

“Yeah…” Susie said. “I miss him so much.”

Meg nodded. “Me too.”

Susie sniffed and bravely raised her chin. “And were did this paper airplane led you, you crazy person?”

“At our platform.” Meg looked into Susie’s eyes. “He was standing there, covered in paper airplanes.”

“Covered in paper airplanes??” Susie frowned, then giggled. “Next thing you know, you’ll be telling me of a fairy god-mother.”

Both girls giggled.

“Yeah, maybe. Anyway, it was kind of awkward and sweet and neither of us would talk, but then he asked me out and we went to Zucker’s for a coffee…”

Meg leaned back, oblivious to the silly grin plastered on her face. 

“You’re daydreaming,” Susie teased. “Do I get to be bridesmaid? And what’s his _name_?!”

Meg looked at her all serious. “Maybe. I mean, you get to be bridesmaid, always. It’s too soon, but I feel like I’ve known him forever. Ooh, I’m being silly, it was just coffee. He did invite me to go to the park next Sunday. And his name is George.”

Susie smiled. “Okay, you lovebird. Just be careful and don’t get your heart broken. And I want to meet this guy.”

“Yes, Mom!” Meg replied, saluting.

Both girls laughed.

“Did you have fun, on your improvised date?”

“Oohh, I did!” Meg said, clapping her hands. “He’s so funny and sweet. He told all these funny stories from when he moved from Hungary to America and only his father knew how to speak English, and barely. And then he asked all about me and where I grew up and about my family. You know how boys never ask what you think or do or are…”

“Yeah. That’s why I don’t date.” Susie wiggled her eyebrows.

“That’s not why you don’t date.” Meg made a headmistress face.

“Anyway, tell me more,” Susie pressed, quickly avoiding the hot topic. “You said Hungary?...”

“Yeah.”

“Is he…?”

“Yes, he’s a Jew, a refugee. But he was still a kid when they came here and he served in Italy, in 1944. He’s an American and Daddy wouldn’t mind and I don’t care about what anyone else may think!”

“I know, I know, darling, it’s just that some folks back home can be… conservative.”

“Anyway when he came back he had to get this job that he hated at an accountant office because his dad had had a heart attack and his mom needed him to pay the bills.”

“Aww…”

“Yes, but now he’s happy. He says that he’s going to take his savings and invest in a type of plastic thingie, or something. His dad was a Chemical Engineer back in Hungary and he knows a lot about that sort of thing, even though he didn’t went to college.”

“Wow, a dreamer…” Susie sighed. “Darling, I’m so happy for you… But just be careful, okay?”

Meg smiled. “Okay.”

* * *

**Winterville ME, 1990**

“Suuusieeee!” Meg laughed as she trotted down the driveway of her summer home.

“Meeeg!” The high pitched squeal hadn’t changed a bit since they were children.

Both friends embraced tightly, rocking from side to side, laughing manically.

“Well, the girls are back together,” George said with a lopsided grin to John, his best friend, who had started the business with him all those years ago, and who had ended up filling the empty space in Susie’s heart.

The ‘girls’ started chatting right away, putting each other up to date in all the business of children and grandchildren and gardens and infuriating husbands as they walked to the back of the house.

George shrugged and grinned to his friend. “I guess the luggage is up to us.”

“As always,” John deadpanned. “I hope you have a couple of ice cold brewskies waiting for us.”

George laughed. “You betcha, buddy. Now, let’s carry these inside before they come back to give us instructions.”

John patted George’s back, laughing. “Damned right.”

_Finis  
December 2014_

**Author's Note:**

> Hi, hope that you enjoyed this take, or that, at least it didn't ruin the movie for you. ;)
> 
> Happy Yule!


End file.
